Sunday, March 10, 2024 PM

We're going to continue working our way through an introduction to Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 1 and verse 1 reads, The vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

And in taking that introductory verse, I think that the significance of Isaiah's prophecy is really embedded here. And if we spend some time working our way through this verse, and we're going to kind of go in reverse order, we can think about all the significant truths and patterns and principles about Isaiah that will help us work our way through the passages in good order.

And we're thinking about the days of these kings, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. What was going on in their days? These were the kings of Judah, but they were also kings of Israel during their time, who were also reigning simultaneously.

And they're actually even addressed here in Isaiah's prophecy. They were also kings of Assyria. Assyria was the big problematic empire of the day. It was the empire everybody was afraid of in Isaiah's day.

In the first section of Isaiah, chapters 1 through 37, really focusing on Assyria. So we want to think about what goes on during this time. And one of the things going on was this was a time of prophets.

This was a time of prophets. There were other prophets in the same time period as Isaiah. He was not the only one who was prophesying. There was the prophet Hosea. There was the prophet Amos. There was other prophets who were preaching at the very same time, maybe some of them to the northern kingdom while Isaiah was preaching to the southern kingdom.

Some of them preached to both kingdoms. But it should concern us what in the world is a prophet. I mean, what is a prophet? We say Isaiah is a prophet. We say this is a book of prophecy. We call Isaiah one of the major prophets.

But what in the world is a prophet? So that's going to be part of our introduction, some of our introductory studies. We need to think about what in the world is a prophet. And before we talk about how the messages and ministries of Jonah and Obadiah and Joel who came before Isaiah and Amos and Hosea and Micah who were preaching at the same time as Isaiah, before we think about how all these prophets were doing the ministry and preaching similar messages, we need to think about who they were and how they were used by God.

The Prophets Speak the Word of God Through Human Language

All of the messages of the prophets harmoniously, flawlessly testify of Jesus Christ because God, being who he is, uses men. He uses temporal men and temporal languages to create an everlasting word. An everlasting word.

You know, the way that Hebrew is spoke today was not the way that it was spoke way back when. And Hebrew fell out of function for a while as folks began to speak Aramaic instead of Hebrew. So much so that those returning from the exile had to have the Old Testament scriptures explained to them because they were not as familiar with Hebrew anymore because they were dependent upon Aramaic.

And then the New Testament was written in what is called Koine Greek, common Greek. And it was the common language of the day. It was what everybody spoke when it was time to make a trade, do a business deal.

But, you know, the Greek spoke today is not like the Greek that was spoke a long, long time ago. These were temporary languages. And yet God used these temporary languages and he used mortal men, holy men, moved by the Holy Spirit, wrote the very words of God.

And he has given us an everlasting word. It is a word about the word, Jesus Christ. It is by the word. It is through the Spirit. And so there is a unity and there is authority to all of Holy Scripture.

Well, when we think about Isaiah, we hear in the very first verse that he sees a vision. And this vision is something that he saw. And then in verse 2, there is a declaration to the people where he says, Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken.

And this brings to mind the kinds of things that would happen with prophets. They would have visions. They would have dreams. They would receive messages from the Lord. And then they would speak to the people and they would say things like, Thus says the Lord.

And so they would see things and then they would say things, the prophets. So this is something about their ministry for sure. But why is there more than one prophet at a time? Why is it important that when we hear about the prophets, we're always told whose reign they preached during?

Why are the prophets measured by kings? I think that answering questions like those are going to help us understand and appreciate Isaiah, both the man and the book, all the more. So first of all, we're going to talk about prophets and their calling.

Prophets Are Called by God, Not Self-Appointed

Prophets were called. They did not appoint themselves. They didn't get a little disturbance in their belly and think, oh, I'm a prophet. They were called by God to the office, to the function, and to the lifestyle of a particular and peculiar servant of the Lord.

All right, so let's name some prophets. And if you name a prophet, then maybe you can describe the experience of their calling. All right, a lot of prophets we can mention from the Bible. We've memorized the books of the Bible.

A whole lot of them are named after prophets. But as you think of a prophet, maybe you can remember the details of how they were called in the first place to be a prophet. Who can you think of? Yeah, Jeremiah didn't have much of a say-so in the matter.

God informed him at a particular point in time. Jeremiah, you were appointed before I formed you in your mother's womb. That's pretty strong, right? So in Jeremiah chapter 1, and this was something that was very striking when we went through Jeremiah on Sunday mornings.

But in verse 5, we find the Lord speaking to Jeremiah. He said, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. So God said, I knew you. I set my attention upon you. My affectionate love was upon you. I knew you before you ever knew me.

In fact, I knew you before you were born. I sanctified you. I ordained you a prophet to the nations. And then we read about Jeremiah saying, Oh, this is a bad idea. And God saying, No, it's my idea. So it's a good idea.

And here's how I'm going to equip you for the job. So that's a good example of Jeremiah being a prophet called by God. Can we think of any other examples? There are a lot of prophets to pick from. Okay, Samuel.

Yes.

So Samuel was promised to God as answer to prayer from his mother's pleadings with the Lord. And remember the details of his calling to be a prophet of God. What happened? It wasn't good news for Eli, was it?

Yes.

The Lord spoke to Samuel in the night. And Samuel responded. Very important. What about Moses? Can we remember the details of his calling to be the Lord's prophet, the Lord's mouth to the people and to Pharaoh?

Where did that happen? What was that story? It was a burning bush. That's right. That's right. He's out there keeping watch of his father-in-law's flocks, right? He's working for his father-in-law.

Things are nice and stable. Things are going well. And then he sees a bush that is engulfed in flame but not consumed. And Moses was that way ever past that point. He was just ever engulfed in the ministry of the Spirit but not consumed.

We can also think, of course, in the book of Isaiah. We come to chapter 6 of Isaiah, and we hear the vision of Isaiah that he had about the throne room of God and God calling Isaiah to go and preach his words even though the folks could not believe him.

Similar circumstances with Ezekiel. Ezekiel's calling was very lengthy, chapters 1 through 3 of Ezekiel, and all the details that God had for him about being his prophet even though it would not be well received.

So when we think about the prophets and their calling, I think it would be important to see how they're described. What are their names? Not necessarily the names like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel, but what are the words used to describe a prophet?

Where do we get those names from? And the first two words in the Hebrew are Roeh and Hoseh. And these are synonyms, and they're used about 20 times, and they're important. The third word, Navi, is the most important because it is used the most.

And in fact, in the composition of the Old Testament in its original form, it had three sections. You might have memorized the books of the Bible and thought about, well, here are the five books of the law, and here are the books of history, and here's the books of poetry, and here's the major prophets, and here's the minor prophets, and you have those several sections.

Well, the Old Testament, when it was written originally in Hebrew and Aramaic, was structured in three parts. There was the Torah, which we call the law, the first five books of the Bible. Some people call it the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible.

And then after the law or the Torah, they had the Nevi 'im. That's the plural of prophet. Anytime you hear the word im, the I-M on the back end of a biblical word, Hebrew word, that means it's something in the plural, a whole bunch of them.

So the Nevi 'im are next, and they include things like 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings because they were written by the prophets, and also include books like Isaiah and Jeremiah. And it includes what we call the minor prophets, so they called it the scroll of the twelve because they put all those prophets onto one big scroll, and that was called the Nevi 'im.

That was the middle part. And the last part of the Old Hebrew Bible was called the Kethuvim or the writings, the writings. Well, that would be your Psalms and your Proverbs, Song of Solomon. They would also include things like Ezra in there, and they had a different way of organizing.

So the Tanakh, the T for Torah, the N for Nevi 'im, and the K, the K sound for Kethuvim, is how they thought of it, Torah, Law, Nevi 'im, Prophets, Kethuvim, Writings. This is why it's so significant that when Jesus in Luke 24 was teaching his disciples, he said, did you not know that the Law and the Prophets and the Writings all testify of me?

What was he saying? He was saying the Tanakh, the whole of all the scriptures that have been written in all the ages, are a testimony unto Messiah. So when we think about the Prophets, we think that that word Nevi 'im is pretty significant, pretty important.

It means, it has the idea of bubbling up from within. It has the idea, it has the word picture of an artesian well. An artesian well is a well that just keeps on bubbling up out of the ground, filtered through all the different layers of sediment.

You don't have to dig down for it, it comes up to you. And that's the idea of the Prophet, that they would be pouring forth words abundantly, and pure words and good words that were necessary for the people.

But these other two words, Ro 'eh and Hoseh, have to do with sight, sight. Some of the kids have been learning about the name of God, El Ro 'eh, right? The God who sees. Well, this is a word that means seer.

And if you turn your Bibles to 1 Samuel chapter 9 and verse 9, you'll see why this word is important. The Prophets were told in 1 Samuel that they went by the title seer, seer. And the story of Benjamin Knight, by the name of Saul, who was the son of Kish, was out looking for his father's donkeys.

And they needed some help finding it, finding the herd. And when we look there in verse 6 of 1 Samuel 9, Saul and his servant make a plan. And he said to him, Now look, there is in this city a man of God.

So, it's another way of talking about a prophet or a seer. There is a man of God, and he is an honorable man. All that he says surely comes to pass. So let us go there. Perhaps he can show us the way that we should go.

Then Saul said to his servant, But look, if we go, what shall we bring the man? For the bread in our vessels is all gone, and there is no present to bring to the man of God. What do we have? And the servant answered Saul again and said, Look, I have here at hand one-fourth of a shekel of silver.

I will give that to the man of God to tell us our way. Now look at verse 9. Formerly in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, he spoke thus, Come, let us go to the seer. See that? The seer. For he who is now called a prophet was formerly called a seer.

That's very helpful. We see that that term was the way in which they used to talk about the prophets, and those terms are connected and are to help inform us what a prophet is. So built on the stem of the normal word for see, what does it mean that he's a seer?

It means that here's an individual who is divinely blessed with both insight and foresight. He has a seer coming to come, but also getting to the heart of insight and foresight together in the same individual.

And this is a word that designates a reliance upon divine revelation. So that you remember when Saul was confronted by Samuel? Samuel knew what had already happened. He knew that Saul had not killed all the Amalekites.

He knew that the spoils of war had been kept when it shouldn't have been. So we see Samuel having insight into the current situation, as well as having foresight when he said, The Lord will tear away the kingdom from you and give it to a man after God's own heart.

So there was insight and foresight brought together in the same person. So the prophet is a seer. The word is important. The second word here, Hosea, is a synonym for Roeh in terms of seeing. And it's important to Isaiah, important to our book that we're studying.

In Isaiah chapter 1 verse 1, we read,. And the word there, vision, is a noun relative. So it's the same root word. So in other words, we're being told that Isaiah is a prophet without them saying he's a prophet.

When you read verse 1, here's a vision, here's a hazon that he saw. So he is a seer. He indeed is a prophet. Now it's a little bit curious when you read 1 Samuel 9. It says now formally those who are called seers are now called prophets.

That's a little bit curious because we find the Hebrew word for prophet all the way back to Genesis. All the way back to Genesis. Genesis chapter 20 verse 7, the word prophet or navi is used to describe Abraham.

And in Exodus chapter 7 verse 1, it is used of Moses. It was popular throughout Deuteronomy, but it was only used once in all the book of Judges. Judges chapter 6 verse 8, when a prophet came to Gideon.

But after that, during the chaos of the days of the judges, when everything went sideways, nothing was going right, every man was doing what was right in his own eyes. During that entire time of the judges, during all that chaos, that word prophet wasn't used.

And instead, every once in a while you hear someone called a man of God. And even in 1 Samuel chapter 2, there was a man of God who prophesied against Eli. But only Samuel is called a prophet after he hears the word of God against Eli.

In 1 Samuel chapter 3 verse 20. So for a long time, that word prophet fell out of use. And the people weren't familiar with the term, they weren't even using the term. And they were just calling the prophets seers.

And in that sense, there was a sense in which they didn't have a full picture of it. They were confused. They didn't have the full idea of how the word of God was to come to them, and what they were supposed to rely on.

And in fact, when you think about the situation with Eli, Eli was blind, but he was blind in more than one way.

Right?

He was physically blind, couldn't see, but he was also blind because he could not hear the voice of God. He did not hear the word of the Lord. But Samuel did hear. Samuel heard the voice of God, and thus he was called a seer.

He heard, thus he saw. You hear how those ideas are brought together in the Hebrew text? Because he heard, he was a seer. And Isaiah's prophecy, as we've already read, has that same sight, word, dynamic.

Here was the vision that Isaiah saw, and thus he declared, thus says the Lord. So, what are we being taught in this is that divine revelation, divine revelation by which we may see, comes by the written or declared words of God, which we must hear.

All along, those who heard were able to see. Divine revelation must be heard if we are to see, and that is the grace of God. Now, remember, we talked about the parable of the sower this morning. Well, in between Jesus giving the parable of the sower, and then the explanation of the sower, a little section there in Matthew 13, where the disciples come to him, and they want to know what's this parable all about, and why are you just teaching them and teaching the people in parables, and Jesus says something there where he quotes from Isaiah, and he talks to them and says, you know, how blessed are your eyes because they see.

How blessed are your ears because they hear, and because you now understand, and Jesus explained the whole meaning of the parable to them. How is it that we may have ears to hear? How is it that we may have eyes to see?

Well, look over in 2 Corinthians 3. 2 Corinthians 3, and we'll look at verses, briefly look at verses 7 and following. Well, there's a contrast here between the ministry of death and the ministry of life, the ministry of the law versus the ministry of the spirit.

But when we come down to verse 12, we read this. Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech, unlike Moses who put a veil over his face, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away.

But their minds are blinded, for until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil was taken away in Christ. If you try to read the Old Testament without Christ, you read it with a veil.

How is it that we read the Old Testament unveiled in the glory which God intended, and we read it because of Christ? In the light of Christ, verse 15,. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart.

Nevertheless, when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. And the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

It's not an exaggeration to state that all things are held together and are reconciled in Christ, even all meaning itself. How is it that we make sense of anything? In the light of what do we make sense of anything?

The light of Jesus Christ. John 1, verses 1 -5 tells us that The Word that became flesh is also the light of the world, who coming into the world enlightens every man. Meaning he's shining the light upon every single man, and we can either try to suppress that truth and ignore that light, or see things from his point of view.

When we are given eyes to see, what do we see but the light? When we are given ears to hear, what do we hear except the Word? When the veil is taken away, it's taken away in Christ. So, divine revelation is saving.

It's salvific in its power. It is graciously manifesting Christ to men. And the prophets saw and proclaimed so that men would hear and see. When you come to the New Testament, the New Testament Greek term for prophets is just prophetates.

That's where we get our English word from. And it simply means to speak before or to speak in the place of. So, Moses was called to speak for God, and to speak before Pharaoh and the people. He was there in the place of, but then he said, I can't talk, I'm stammering.

So then God says, well then Aaron will speak in your place, and he will speak for you, he will be your prophet. So Aaron was called Moses' prophet. Jesus himself is called a prophet in Luke 13 verse 33.

He said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. And when we hear his words, we hear the very words of God. So, when we think about what is a prophet, the basic idea of the prophet is that it is one who is conveying the word of God so that by the grace of God, having ears to hear and eyes to see, we would know who God is through Jesus Christ.

So the prophets are vitally essential to the revelation of Christ throughout the scriptures. We're out of time, so we're going to leave it there. But next time we're going to think about the nature of the prophets and get into why they were so weird so often.

Why did they do all those strange things? Why don't people do that now? And we'll talk more about that. But let's go ahead and close by singing the doxology.